Mary Beth Ingham

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From the Preface
Perhaps instinctively we expect to find beauty playing an important role in a tradition founded by Francis of Assisi, himself a poet, musician and singer. His Canticle of Creatures extols the Most High for creatures with a rich vocabulary of their qualities: “bright, precious, and fair.” And his contemporary, Clare of Assisi, writes in her correspondence with Agnes of Prague of the beauty of her Beloved, using the medieval metaphor of the mirror. Beauty certainly can claim a place at the early Franciscan table.

But the special focus of this study is the appreciation of beauty in the writings of two great theorists of the tradition, Bonaventure of Bagnoregio and John Duns Scotus. Here we see the confluence of a rich earlier tradition of Christian reflection on beauty and its role in our journey toward God. From Augustine to the Victorines, a rich Platonic stream within the Western Catholic tradition spoke of God as Beauty; and our Franciscan authors drank deeply of that Pierian spring.… (more)